Eva lives in the Aerie in New North, a frozen tundra, after a world-wide catastrophe happened with major flood killing the majority of the world 200 years before. Eva is a maiden following the ways of the Lex.

Eva loses her twin brother and decides with only months to go to take on the Testing. The Testing sends young people (males and Eva) to the frozen tundra to survive in the ice and find relics of the past to prove that the New North ways are best. Fiction is not allowed and the name of the pre-disaster false god is Apple.

This book is packaged as a Hunger Games-type dystopia, but its really not. There is a hidden conspiracy. But Eva was notforced or encouraged to do the Testing. And I throughout the book, I wondered at Eva’s physical abilities capable of making this journey in just a few short months. Clearly she’s smart, if misguided. And clearly she has rebelled in small, insignificant ways in the past. I got tired of hearing about the god Apple. I would have preferred any other name rather than make it out like all of society has this one singular tech device. Coke and Tylenol make the bad list too.

Even with those complaints, the book does move. There is an element of romance, though its subsumed in the frantic concerns for what she finds. And there is the question of who to trust and why. I’m curious about the second book, but I haven’t sought it out yet either.

I borrowed this book from our library in an MP3 version to listen to on the way to work. I thought Angela Brazil had a great voice and really brought the characters to life.